


Themes and Variations: The Five of Pentacles

by ashilrak



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Depression, Drinking, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Master of Death Harry Potter, Questionable Personhood, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:00:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashilrak/pseuds/ashilrak
Summary: Five of Pentacles, The Chariot, King of Swords, Knight of Rods, Eight of Rods.After Voldemort, Harry faced both life and death and found them lacking.---Does ‘until death do us part’ still hold when you can’t die?
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 9
Kudos: 118





	Themes and Variations: The Five of Pentacles

**Author's Note:**

> "Five of Pentacles Upright
> 
> When upright, the Five of Pentacles traditionally refers to two people who remain very much in love despite any material troubles they must confront. They take seriously their marriage vows: "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part." The lovers walking in a snowstorm pass the church where they got married. Despite declining finances and ill health, they remain devoted to each other in a committed relationship. This card indicates the importance of love and mutual support in weathering life's storms. It shows a willingness to face hardships with a partner in a mutually supportive way." (237)

The Chariot: Reason Tames Appetite and Will

Master the situation at hand in the midst of challenges. Take the reigns of the chariot on which you ride through life. You have the resources needed to accomplish your goals. Stop hiding them behind the shell of your personality. Your success depends on your ability to balance your ambitions and your appetites. Set clear boundaries and respect your limits. Take control of your life.

\---

For the first time in her life, Harry didn’t know what to do. 

The war was over. Voldemort was dead. Over a year had passed since the final battle. Her entire life had been dictated to her. 

“Girl, brush your hair,” Vernon barked.

“Girl, make Dudders’ breakfast,” Petunia said through clenched teeth as she opened the cupboard door. “Don’t burn the bacon.”

A piece of parchment delivered by a half-giant telling her she was going to a school of magic called Hogwarts.

Dumbledore handed her stone, diary, prisoner, tournament, detentions, and horcruxes on a gleaming silver platter. She’d rebelled within her bounds, but never strayed. Never pushed hard enough to make a real difference. Never managed to break down the walls closing in around her.

Maybe Snape had always known, watched with derision as she failed because she wasn’t trying hard enough. Never tried hard enough at anything. Put in just enough effort to tick the boxes on the to-do list someone else wrote up for her. Perhaps that was why he kept hating her. He’d spent his entire life trapped by his circumstances. Maybe he wanted better for her. Maybe he’d made some sort of promise to her mum. Lily Evans had been the type of woman that inspired that sort of thing in others. Supposedly.

Harry was supposed to have that charm. The Girl-Who-Lived was supposed to bring them all together in the fight against the dark and the evil. 

She stood at the sides of McGonagall, Flitwick, the Weasleys, and countless others during the rebuilding. Hogwarts needed to be back to her former glory by September. McGonagall had been very clear in her expectations. 

“Miss Potter,” she said over breakfast the first morning. “You’ll be clearing the rubble and debris from the first floor. William and I will be starting the rebuilding in the dungeons.”

There’d been no questions. Everyone was assigned a position and everyone held to it.

It was mindless work. The stones that were still usable were put in one pile, the rest of the debris vanished. It was hardly the first battle the castle had seen. 

That didn’t make it easier to walk into the Great Hall that first day. The image of the dead and the injured filling the vast space felt like it was seared into her brain. 

From the look Mrs. Weasley had given the spot where Fred once laid, she wasn’t the only one.

Hogwarts was easy. No one looked at her differently there. Maybe because they were the ones who recognized how helpless she had really been. How little say she’d had. 

Dumbledore had given her a golden snitch and told her to accept her death.

Harry didn’t consider following instructions bravery. It wasn’t cowardice. It wasn’t anything. 

No one else seemed to have gotten that memo.

She hadn’t thought twice of going to Diagon to help George with the shop, not about the crowds at least. She’d put a lot of thought toward how best to approach George.

She had lost her damn mind over the loss of Sirius, a man who she had only a couple days’ worth of memories of. A man who had an odd glint in his eye when looking at her half the time, a glint that spoke of things Harry hadn’t been ready to acknowledge. Still wasn’t ready to acknowledge.

Sirius was more of an idea than anything. A symbol of the life she could have had.

Whatever heartbreak she felt over the loss of Sirius, it was a drop of rain compared to the ocean of George’s grief.

Harry hadn’t made it to the shop before she was hounded. The crowds surrounded her, more than they ever had before. She thought she knew what it was like to face the nameless faces of the Wizarding world, to hear her name shouted by unfamiliar voices and be blinded with the flashes of cameras. But she was wrong.

People respected Hogwarts. Even the few that tried to come in for a chance to speak to the Girl-Who-Lived were quickly shown the door by a stern-faced McGonagall.

In Diagon Alley though, the death didn’t linger and there wasn’t any tartan-clad protector.

Harry was on her own. 

She had taken a deep breath and turned on her heel and disapparated away. 

It was a picture of Tonks and Remus that had made her do it. Teddy was a warm weight in her arms as she ran her fingers through his black curly hair. It was always black when she visited. 

She’d been jealous of Tonks’ hair the first time she saw it. Short, spiked, and bright bubblegum pink. She’d never been one to be too concerned for appearances, but the endless slew of comments on how much she looked like her father had her feeling trapped. Like she wouldn’t be allowed to change what she looked like even if she wanted to. 

Her hair was still black after she cut it off. It stuck up when it wasn’t weighed down by length. Her face had always been too angular to be pretty. The short hair only highlighted that. 

Harry always had been skinny. It didn’t take more than a haircut and proper robes to make her unidentifiable. Too busy looking for long, curling tresses and muggle jeans, the reporters didn’t give her one look when she made it back to Diagon.

George blinked at her when she walked in. Once, twice, three times, before the corner of his lip almost came up in the suggestion of a smirk.

Time passed quickly. 

The atmosphere on the Hogwarts Express was different that year. She wasn’t sure if it was tension or the lack thereof that had the back of her neck tingling. She’d never had a “normal” year at Hogwarts. No eighth year was, but it was the closest she was going to get.

Their compartment was quiet. Hermione, Ron, and Neville on one side. Her, Ginny, and Luna on the other. 

It was Malfoy who approached her a few months in. 

She was sitting in the library, skimming some of the pamphlets meant for second years to help them pick their electives. She’d never given much thought toward it. Had chosen the easiest options because that’s what Ron was doing. Everyone expected her to become an auror.

“Potter,” the familiar, nasally voice pulled her from her thoughts.

Harry looked up to find Draco Malfoy standing before her, alone with his hands folded behind his back.

“Malfoy,” she said.

He stared at her for a moment. “I’d like to...thank you...for speaking on behalf of my family.”

Right. She’d done that. The trials had all blurred together for her. Nearly a full week of making all sorts of statements and answering all sorts of questions. How did she kill Voldemort? Where was she while she was Undesirable #1? Did she know the killing curse wouldn’t kill her?

There were a lot of things she could have said. Hermione’s imaginary voice was telling her to be polite. 

“I didn’t do it for you,” she said.

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. 

“But you’re welcome.”

A moment passed where they just stared at each other, neither saying a word. Malfoy eventually left, and Harry was left alone at her table staring at the words on the pamphlets but not reading any of them.

She idly twirled her wand, her original holly and phoenix feather. 

The Elder Wand had done its job of repairing it. She had thrown it far away from her with every intention of never seeing it again. It had ended up in her pocket within the hour alongside the resurrection stone.

She had started playing a game of sorts. She’d leave them somewhere and count down the seconds after apparating until they came back. A twisted game of fetch where she was both the human and the dog, and the ball had a mind of its own.

It took time for Ron and Hermione to feel comfortable leaving her on her own. There was always someone within reach, if not them, then Luna, Neville or Ginny. Even Malfoy had made an effort, two months after that day in the library. He sat across from her at the Gryffindor table when she came down early for breakfast after nightmares made sleep a wish more than a reality.

She reached her breaking point on Halloween. Had dragged them both to the Room of Requirement and snapped.

Guilt had almost had her taking every word back at their wide eyes.

“Harry,” Hermione had said, voice carefully measured the way it was when she explained something she thought obvious. “You died.”

Ron rubbed the back of his neck as he looked at the floor. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s-you’re alive now, obviously.”

Harry nodded. “Obviously.”

“But we still thought you were dead,” he continued. “And then you weren’t and we thought you were just faking being dead.”

“I was.”

“Harry,” Hermione scolded, arms crossed over her chest. 

It was comforting in a weird way, knowing Hermione would still scold her for being purposefully obtuse. So many of the professors didn’t. Even McGonagall had relaxed after the first few days.

“Mate,” Ron cut in. “We thought you were just faking being dead, and then you go and tell us you were actually dead.”

Harry shrugged. 

She didn’t like thinking about it. As far as she was concerned, it was a dream. If she thought about her death, it meant thinking about her life. And that meant acknowledging that she had held a portion of Voldemort’s soul for most of her life. That for the first time, she was on her own in all the ways that mattered. 

It meant that she had to face the hollow feeling within her that persisted as things settled back into place. Had to find her purpose in a world where being the chosen one was behind her. 

The first time she had held Teddy her mind had flashed to the infant-corpse-creature under the bench.

Hermione breathed out through her nose. “Fine, Harry,” she said. “We’ll try to give you some space. We’re sorry.”

“Yeah,” Ron said, a small smile on his lips. “But don’t think you’re getting rid of us completely.”

She opened her arms and for a moment, with her two best friends holding her, everything was okay.

The year passed without much of anything happening. She slept, she ate, she attended class, drank Butterbeer and bought too much chocolate on Hogsmeade weekends, and contemplated her existence.

Mrs. Weasley had set up a long table outside for a dinner to celebrate the end of the year. The table was practically groaning from the amount of food on the table.

She sat between Andromeda and Fleur, Teddy balanced on her lap. 

Sitting across from her was Charlie, having gotten a portkey for the occasion and purposefully shoved into that spot by a not-so-subtle Mrs. Weasley. 

“So, Harry,” Charlie said. “What are you thinking now that you’re out of Hogwarts?”

Hermione was headed to the ministry, Ron was going to help George with the shop, Ginny was about to start the trials for a spot on the Hollyhead Harpies, and Neville and Luna were both about to start apprenticeships. 

“If you’re trying to delay adulthood, I bet you could give Ginny a run for her money and go the quidditch route,” Charlie added with a wink.

She’d always managed to redirect the conversation, or lucked out and had someone else interrupt with something else. It looked like the time had finally come for her to answer as more pairs of eyes turned her way.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, looking down at Teddy. “I think I’m going to take some time for myself. Maybe try to make Grimmauld Place livable.”

The latter bit had come out of her mouth in the moment, moreso a mumble than a statement. But she could do that. 

A year had passed since the final battle. She’d been looking for some sort of direction. Maybe she just needed a project.

She could do this.

She offered Charlie a smile. “I’m going to work on Grimmauld Place, lighten it up a bit,” she said. “I think I need the time to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now.”

He smiled back. “I think that’ll be good for you.”

\---

King of Swords: Authority Figure Sits in Judgement

An important male figure in your life or personality traits needed to navigate your situation. A decisive person who uses their own sharp intellect to achieve their goals. Confrontational in the search for truth. Does not suffer fools gladly. 

\---

Harry didn’t know if Grimmauld Place had ever been welcoming. If it had, it certainly wasn’t in recent memory.

The first thing she did was call for Kreacher.

“Kreacher,” she called out, standing in the doorway with her trunk at her side.

He appeared with a pop. “Yes, mistress?”

The entryway was as dark and depressing as ever. Harry was no stranger to cleaning and keeping a home - Vernon and Petunia had made sure of that - but her neverending chore list and Petunia’s need for Number 4 to look straight out of a lifestyle catalog meant that she’d never faced quite this level of filth before.

“Open the windows,” she said after a moment. Airing it out would be step one. Fresh air and whatever sunlight they could get would do a world of good. “And open all the doors.”

Kreacher’s ears perked up. “What for, mistress?”

Harry sniffed. “Spring cleaning.”

Mrs. Weasley had made an effort, and she’d done a decent enough job at getting rid of the worst of it. Mundungus had taken anything else worth keeping. She’d go through Sirius’ and Regulus’ rooms and keep anything of sentimental value. Everything else was going. 

She had a London townhouse that she was sure would fetch at least a few million pounds on the muggle market if Petunia’s magazines had any say. Might as well make it look like one.

When she woke up the next morning, Harry took in a deep breath and blinked at the ceiling. Even a night with the windows open had made a difference. The air felt lighter. She felt lighter. If she didn’t live in England, there may have even been sun streaming through the window, catching on the dust floating in the air.

On the bedside table sat two wands: one of holly and one of elder. 

Harry ran a hand through her hair, pursing her lips when the tangles caught on her nails. She sat up. 

“Kreacher,” she called. 

“Yes, mistress?”

She yawned. “Could I have some tea and toast, please?”

Kreacher said something in response, but Harry wasn’t paying him much mind. Next to the Elder Wand sat the stone. Her cloak was hanging on one of the bed posts. 

With a moment’s hesitation, she closed her hand around the wand of elder.

She dressed in the old castoffs that she kept buried in the bottom of her trunk, the ones with stains speaking to cleaning supplies and yard work. 

Her tea and toast was waiting for her on the kitchen table, steam rising from the liquid in satisfying spirals. Kreacher stood against the wall, wringing his ears in his hands.

Harry sat down. 

“Kreacher,” she said. 

“Mistress,” the elf started, looking down at the ground. “Are you staying?”

She took a sip of her tea. “Yes,” she said, after a moment. “I think I am.”

Kreacher, as ancient as he was, seemed to perk up. “What can Kreacher do to help mistress?”

Harry didn’t try to hold back here snort. Those were possibly the last words she expected to hear from him.

“First thing,” she said. “Is getting rid of the elf heads.”

Kreacher blanched. 

“You can keep them,” she added. “If you want. As well as anything else you’d like, I guess. I want everything but the furniture, books, and any remaining valuables gone. If you’re unsure, ask. Empty Sirius’ and Regulus’ rooms of their things but don’t get rid of anything of theirs. I’ll be going through it later.”

Kreacher popped out of sight. Harry leaned back and sipped her tea, twirling the wand in her left hand. 

And so the grand undertaking of making number 12 Grimmauld place inhabitable and unrecognizable began.

Hermione and Ron came through the floo the first Friday evening in the midst of her arguing with Sirius’ mum’s portrait. 

“I DO NOT CARE IF THIS IS AN ANCESTRAL HOME OF THE ANCIENT AND NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK,” she yelled. “I AM REPAINTING THIS HOUSE AND IF YOU DON’T SHUT UP I’M PAINTING OVER YOU, AND I’LL USE MUGGLE PAINT TO DO IT. SO UNSTICK YOURSELF FROM THIS WALL OR YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET EVER BEING PAINTED.”

Ron cleared his throat. “Can she even unstick herself?” he asked. “I don’t think portraits usually have that sort of ability.”

Harry lifted her shoulder in response as she spelled the curtains covering the portrait shut. “Kreacher won’t do it unless the banshee agrees,” she said. “And it’s house elf magic holding her to the wall, so there’s not much I can do about it otherwise.”

Hermione’s face got that tight look it always did when house elves were mentioned.

Before she could say anything, Harry stuck the wand in the back pocket of her jeans and waved them in. “The kitchen’s almost done,” she said. “I’m doing it one bit at a time, and Mrs. Weasley had made good work of it when the Order was still here.”

By the end of the night, they were three-quarters of the way into a bottle of firewhiskey Kreacher had brought out of some mysterious corner, and Harry’s cheeks were flushed from the alcohol and aching from smiling so much.

It was when Harry vanished a spill Ron had made when gesturing while telling a story that Hermione’s eyes had narrowed.

“Harry,” she said. “Is that the Elder wand?”

Harry froze. 

“I thought you got rid of it!” Hermione said, leaning forward to look more closely at it. “I saw you throw it. Ron! We both saw you throw it.”

Ron looked between the two of them. “No, you’re right, ‘Mione,” he said. “Harry definitely threw it.”

Harry wished she were anywhere else. The implications of the wand’s stubbornness were ones that she tried her best to avoid. She did not need her two best friends hounding her about this too.

“Is that the Elder wand?” Hermione repeated.

She twirled it in her hand. “Maybe?”

If they were all sober, Harry was sure the staring match would have turned into an interrogation. As it was, the carefree mood of the moment before was lost and Ron and Hermione went on their merry way.

Slowly but surely the beauty of the Victorian home could begin to be appreciated. Kreacher had near thrown a fit the first time he saw her use a muggle scrub brush and cleaner, but the end result was worth it. Scourgify was all well and good, but an overpowered one could strip what you were trying to clean. 

The elder wand, as Harry had quickly discovered, had the tendency to overpower most spells. And the spells to clean and polish metal were all well and good, but wood needed to be oiled and magic wasn’t always up to the task. 

Taking away, Harry had figured out during one of Hermione’s rants on Gamp’s laws of elemental transfiguration, was much easier to achieve with magic than adding ever was. Creating something out of nothing wasn’t possible, even with magic. 

The dark furniture was not stained, as Harry had originally suspected, but the wood itself was dark. Ebony, truly befitting of the home of an ancient and noble house. And so, the dark furniture remained. 

She threw herself onto a sofa in the ground floor parlor, twirling the wand in her hand. She had to figure out the color scheme before she moved forward. She wanted light colors, but white with the black would be too stark. 

Not that she had any real eye for design. Nor did she know what went into a wizarding home that didn’t go into a muggle one. Stay-at-home-witch she was not meant to be.

Asking Mrs. Weasley felt like defeat.

On her hand, the resurrection stone gleamed, catching the light of the candles Kreacher insisted on having lit at all hours.

Harry froze.

The resurrection stone had been resting on her nightstand, next to her holly wand. Furthermore, it was a loose stone last time she checked, not set on a ring.

And yet, despite that, a very familiar ring was on her left ring finger. 

A rather conspicuous finger, not that Harry paid that much mind.

As she stared at the ring, a forbidden thought came to mind. A thought she had been working herself day and night to avoid. 

Over a year had passed since Voldemort shot her with the killing curse. Over a year since she had seen the last of what once lived inside her. Over a year of living with an abstract sort of loneliness she still couldn’t put a finger on. Was it searching for a purpose? Was it because she was holding herself up in Grimmauld? Or was it that exact thing she hoped it wasn’t?

Her eye traced the sign engraved into the ring. Line. Circle. Triangle. Wand. Stone. Cloak.

Harry had hoped from the moment the words first crossed Hermione’s lips that Master of Death was a meaningless title, just something that came from a child’s story. The very existence of the stone proved that wrong.

The wand could just be a fiddly wand, the cloak could just be an unusually long-lived invisibility cloak.

The stone was without an alternative explanation.

Harry wasn’t sure what she aimed to do as she held her right hand in front of her, but she was only resigned when she felt the familiar silky touch of her father’s invisibility cloak.

And so it seemed she was always meant for this.

The wand, the stone, and the cloak together for perhaps the first time. She closed her eyes.

The room grew cold and Harry’s stomach sank.

She blinked her eyes open to find a humanoid figure standing before her. No face or limbs visible, just a black cloak in the shape of a man.

Harry sighed. “I don’t suppose this is the end.”

There was no sound, but Harry got the impression of laughter nonetheless.

“Master.” The word wasn’t spoken, not really. It was moreso the idea of the word in her mind. Reverse legilimency, if that was even a thing. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

The being - Death, it had to be death. Even her ability to ignore what was right in front of her didn’t go that deep. 

“Hello.”

The laughter was back. Somehow it was comforting, as bizarre as it was to have it coming from all sides while not being there at all.

“Wishing and wanting are powerful things, Master,” Death said. “But even you do not get to choose when to die.”

There were implications there, the kind that Harry made a bad habit of ignoring, that spoke to fate and predetermination. That could be the next focus of contemplation since the entire Master of Death thing was now confirmed.

A previously unknown fear crept up from the back of her mind, the type of fear that she didn’t think humanity was supposed to know or even contemplate. 

“Can I die?” she asked. Her tone was desperate, more than she knew it could be. 

Silence.

“Sometimes the worst thing a wish can do is come true” was the cryptic response.

And Death was gone, leaving only the certainty that Harry was something more than she ever wanted to be and that she might need to be a bit careful with her Christmas list that year.

\---

Knight of Rods: Departing for Adventure

Action, enterprise, movement, and novelty entering your life. Get ready for something exciting. Change is in the air. Expect the unexpected.

\---

With a snap of Kreacher’s fingers, Walburga Black’s portrait disappeared from the wall to somewhere in Malfoy manor. It had taken a month or two of arguing that turned into debating that mellowed out into cajoling before the woman had agreed to leave. The threat of muggle paint had come up more than a few times, as did the reminder that at Malfoy manor she’d be interacting with people she found worthy of her time instead of yelling at the filthy half-blood who had the gall to invade her home.

Three days after that, the main floor and the hallways were all painted a pale blue with white trim, the ebony furniture creating a lovely contrast. 

“Kreacher,” she said, turning to the house elf fluffing some pillows.

“Yes, mistress?”

Harry put her hands on her hips. “I am going to sit in the front parlor and contemplate my life from this point on.” That was part of why she had decided to re-do Grimmauld, after all, even if she’d spent every waking moment working and avoiding it. “To aid me, I would like a bottle of wine from the secret alcohol hoard that I know exists that you won’t show me and some cake.”

Kreacher stared at her for a moment, a battle of wills he had no hope of winning before he vanished with a pop.

A moment later he returned with what looked to be a very old bottle of wine, a crystal glass, and a healthy serving of chocolate cake.

“This was old mistress’ favorite wine for contemplation,” Kreacher offered. “I stood it up a month ago, so it should be good for drinking now.”

“Stood it up?” Harry asked, brows rising on her forehead.

Kreacher nodded, seeming unusually proud of herself. “Old wine needs special care.”

She supposed she must have garnered some sort of approval from Walburga or Kreacher to warrant such special treatment.

Harry relaxed back onto the sofa. Seeing Kreacher’s face when she went to pour the wine for herself, she decided to let him pour it for her. If Walburga’s idea of contemplation was anything close to hers, this bottle was perfectly suited for getting drunk while alone with one’s thoughts.

Apparently, what made rich people doing that different from poor people doing it was the age of one’s wine.

If she weren’t certain there was very likely an entire wine cellar hidden away, she’d feel much more guilty about it. 

She’d have to persuade Kreacher to let her give Hermione a bottle. 

She took a sip. And then another. It was very good wine.

Harry Potter was the Girl-Who-Lived. Harry Potter had fulfilled her duty as the chosen one. Harry Potter was the Master of Death. Harry Potter was finished with Hogwarts. Harry Potter was renovating the home her godfather had left to her as a way to avoid reality and find some time for herself.

Harry Potter didn’t know what to do with herself. She finished the glass.

Renovating Grimmauld could take as long as she needed it to take. Kreacher poured her more wine.

Harry Potter was lonely and the more time passed with frequent visits from and to friends and family, the move she realized it wasn’t the type of lonely people could fix. 

She held the glass up to the light. The flames of the candles reflected in the pattern of the crystal. 

A part of her ached for the missing part of Voldemort. She had never noticed it when it was there. Had never talked to it, had never felt its embrace in the dark of her cupboard. She was sure it had some influence on her, but she had no measure of how much. All she knew was that it was gone.

Without Voldemort her life had no purpose. Without his soul, however small it may have been, she didn’t feel whole.

She took a bite of cake. She took a sip of wine. 

Both delicious. The type of luxury she couldn’t have imagined while they had been on the run. 

She had tried to talk to Ginny once, about Tom Riddle, about the person that Voldemort had once been. Ginny had shut her down too quickly to be anything other than defensive.

Harry couldn’t blame her. Not at the time, and certainly not now. 

It wasn’t easy to admit that even for a moment you’d had a crush on Voldemort, even if you didn’t know who he was at the time. 

But that’s what had made Tom Riddle so much more dangerous than Voldemort. Voldemort was undeniable. You couldn’t look at the creature he had transformed himself into and see him as anything less than evil.

Tom Riddle, on the other hand, before the dark arts had taken their toll, was charming and handsome and knew the perfect thing to say to anyone and everyone. Tom Riddle was dangerous because you never saw him coming.

It had made a lot more sense to Harry how he’d risen to power the more she saw of Tom Riddle. 

A part of her, a part she never gives voice to, wonders how she would have stood against Tom Riddle in all of his glory. 

A horcrux was one thing. She’d only ever faced bits and pieces of Voldemort and barely scraped by.

Against a Tom Riddle who had never tried to surpass the natural order? She never would have stood a chance.

In his search for strength he found weakness.

She empties her second glass of wine. Kreacher refills it. He seems resigned. Seems she might be more similar to Walburga than she knew. 

The thought both disgusts and comforts her. 

Her first crush, her first love if she’s feeling particularly romantic, was Tom Riddle, and that’s something that Harry Potter was not ready to face.

“Kreacher,” she said, suddenly. “My first kiss was the ex-girlfriend of a man I saw die. The only other person I’ve kissed is my best friend’s younger sister.”

He remained silent.

“I want to kiss someone,” she continued. “Someone who I properly want to kiss and won’t just awkwardly look back on.”

She’d once heard Lavender giggle about being wine drunk. Maybe this is what she meant. 

“I can fetch someone to kiss you, mistress,” Kreacher said.

Harry barked out a laugh. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”

She was almost certain he didn’t. The damned elf was serious.

“Who would you like to kiss, mistress?” Kreacher asked, oddly excited. “I can help.”

She snorted and took another sip of wine. “I think I want to kiss Tom Riddle.”

Yes. Now that she thought about it, that was exactly who she wanted to kiss. Had she found the diary even a couple years later she probably would have tried to kiss his perfect smile off his perfect face. She didn’t even know if knowing he was Voldemort would stop her.

Maybe in the moment. But he really was awfully pretty.

With that being said, Harry’s not sure she would have ever said that out loud if she knew Death and whatever other cosmic forces existed were listening.

Because imagining kissing a memory while drinking expensive wine is one thing, having said memory appear not-so-memory-ish was something completely different.

And in that moment, Harry Potter was not too proud to not admit she might have let out a little whimper at the sight of Tom Riddle’s familiar grin, the one she had dreamed of way too often.

“Oh,” he breathed out. “Hello, Harry.”

Harry swallowed around the rapidly forming lump in her throat. “You’re dead,” she said. “I killed you.”

He tilted his head, gazing into her soul it felt like. His eyes were brown. For whatever reason, that seemed important.

“You didn’t think I’d ever leave you, Harry,” he said after a moment. “I’m with you, always. I’ll never leave you.”

It was simultaneously everything she’d ever wanted to hear and the last thing she ever wanted him to say to her. It was her every hope and every fear come true.

She’d been alone for too long before Hogwarts for it to not have an impact. Her best friends had turned their back on her more times than she wanted to admit. The entirety of wizarding Britain had abandoned her to rot more than once.

Never before had anyone looked her in the eyes and told her they’d never leave. 

But Voldemort had hounded after her for so long, it felt like a curse. Who was she without him? This confirmed it, really.

Before her thoughts could continue spiraling, Tom Riddle grabbed for her hand. 

It was warm, solid, comforting, and altogether everything it wasn’t supposed to be.  
Without looking away from him, she downed the rest of her glass of wine.

Riddle watched the movement, his eyes tracing her neck. Harry felt equal amount of shame and heat rise within her at the sight. Merlin, this was actually a form of torture. It had to be. Some form of a guilt complex coming in the form of a unique punishment. 

But the heat of Tom Riddle’s hand in hers told her it was not a drunken dream, but rather something very, very real. Impossibly real. 

As if reading her thoughts, Riddle smirked.

He took a seat next to her on the sofa, still holding her hand. Their thighs were just touching, and Harry felt like fifty-percent of her brain power was focused on that shared heat. 

Harry had every intention of blaming the wine for how her eyes drifted down to linger on his lips. 

“Harry,” he said, nearly purring her name. “Wishing and wanting are powerful things, and sometimes the worst thing a wish can do is come true.”

Her mouth fell open. 

Those had been Death’s last words to her.

Well, shit.

“I’m here,” Riddle continued. “Because you want me here. The words aren’t enough. Something deep within you was aching for me, Harry.”

She couldn’t even say he was lying.

He squeezed her hand and leaned just the slightest bit forward. Merlin, he was right there. 

“Harry,” he whispered. “You wanted me here for a reason.”

She did, didn’t she?

Fuck it.

She leaned forward and closed the small space between them. She wanted to kiss him, and so she did. She could deal with the consequences in the morning.

His lips were soft. His free hand came to cup the side of her neck. She tilted her head to the side, brushing her tongue across his lower lip to deepen the kiss.  
Fuck. It was perfect.

She’d probably spent hours daydreaming about messing up diary Tom Riddle’s perfect hair, and Merlin knew she wasn’t going to waste this opportunity. 

His hair was soft and thick, because of course it was. 

Harry pressed closer, barely separating from him to breathe as she sought his body heat. If she thought kissing Ginny had been life-changing in the moment, she didn’t even have a word for this. 

Maybe it was because it was a fantasy brought to life, literally only happening because she wanted it to be so. Maybe he wasn’t even a person, simply a projection of what she wanted in the moment. He certainly knew exactly where she wanted his hands on her, knew the exact moments to pull apart to breathe, knew exactly the way to tug on her hair to have her gasping.

It was everything she ever wanted it to be times a million. 

She was sitting on his lap now, both of her hands tangled in his hair. One of his hands tangled in hers, the other on her hip tugging her closer. 

It struck her, in that moment as she leaned back to just look at him, that he was wearing his school robes. His face was slightly sharper, had lost some of the awkwardness that puberty had brought even him, but he was still dressed the same. A schoolgirl fantasy brought to life. 

There was a flush high on his cheeks, his perfect hair was a complete mess, and his eyes hadn’t moved from her face for a single second. But the knowing look within them told her the truth that she really did not want to acknowledge: that this was very, very real. 

And if Tom Riddle was to be believed, he was here to stay.

\---

Eight of Rods: Flying with Haste Over the Countryside

Swiftness in thought and deed. Progresses quickly in a controlled and thoughtful manner. Enthusiasm and confidence propel you forward. Quick thinking and readiness to act decisively grants success in your endeavors. Cupid’s arrows, becoming smitten by love.

\---

Harry Potter woke up that morning with a splitting headache, warmth pressed along her back, and a weight settled over her waist.  
She froze.

The hand on her waist let up. She turned around to find the last face she was expecting.

Tom Riddle, hair mussed with creases imprinted on the side of his face that had been pressed against the pillow.

He smiled. “Good morning, Harry.”

And the night came rushing back.

At the core of the matter was this: somehow, she had missed the bizarre form of stability Voldemort gave her enough to bring him back wearing the face she’d secretly thought was too pretty to be real for years.

“This is impossible,” she breathed out.

It had to be. Or else she had to face the fact that Voldemort was an irreplaceable part of her life.

His smile widened. “I’m afraid it’s very much possible,” he said. “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

“But how?” she asked.

“Because you wanted it to be,” he said. His brows furrowed together in a way Harry wanted to call adorable. Would have called adorable if he was anyone but who he was. 

She shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Magic depends on intent,” Tom said, eyes sharpening. “What more is intent than a wish or a want? Accidental magic is based solely on desires and needs in a moment. A wand helps make things easier, certainly, but it’s not necessary, or accidental magic wouldn’t be a thing. You’re a witch whether or not you have a wand.”

“But the elder-”

He pressed a perfectly manicured finger against her lips. “Wandless magic is beyond the scope of many a witch or wizard. It takes an open mind that many find themselves lacking,” he said. “And even for those who don’t need it, a wand makes things easier. They were popularized for a reason, before the ministry had any need to track magic.”

She blinked. That was another one of those statements that had implications.

“But-”

“No buts,” he interrupted. “You wanted me here, so I’m here.”

“But you’re dead.” She grabbed his hand so he couldn’t use it to interrupt again. “You’re dead, and by all rights, your last memory was of when you tried to kill me and failed.”

“Yes,” Riddle agreed, nodding. 

“You’ve never been this reasonable,” Harry said. “Even the diary version of you had a very, very short fuse.

He shrugged, as much as he was able to, lying next to her on the bed. “Wish magic, my dear,” he offered. “I am me, but only as much of me as you want or need.”

Harry sat up suddenly, something bursting forth from within. “What does that even mean?!”

“It means exactly what you need it to mean.”

She narrowed her eyes.

He sat up to be able to better meet her gaze. “By all rights,” he said. “I’m dead.”

Harry nodded.

“You are the Master of Death.”

She nodded again.

“As such,” Riddle gestured toward himself. “I fall under your purview to do with as you wish.”

“You’re hardly the only dead person I’ve thought about, Riddle,” Harry spat out.

The grin was back. “Ah,” he said. “But you’ve certainly thought about me the most.”

The worst part was that he wasn’t wrong.

“And,” Riddle continued. “I made horcruxes. You left the part of my soul that resided within you in purgatory. I do not believe I can ever die. At least not naturally. You might be one of the few things that can properly kill me.”

And so it seemed that Harry Potter was still the chosen one.

“Is that so?” she asked, tone flat.

“It is indeed.”

A moment passed.

Something Riddle said clicked for her.

“Wait,” Harry said. “Are you the part of your soul that was in my head then?” 

Riddle nodded. “I have memories and knowledge from the other parts, but yes. I am mostly the horcrux you hosted.”

That...made slightly more sense. Only a little, but more than zero. Tom Riddle was a self-serving bastard through and through. Harry could almost rationalize that the part of Tom Riddle who had depended on her for his survival for sixteen years could have grown somewhat fond of her.

“So,” Harry said, trying to make as most sense as she could out of the situation. “You like me because you depended on me for sixteen years, I’m the one thing standing between you and certain death, and I want you to.”

“And I’m a young adult male and you are a young adult female who previously housed a part of my soul,” Riddle added.

“That really does it for you, doesn’t it.”

Riddle’s eyes ran over her in a way that even she couldn’t misconstrue. “We all have our peculiarities.”

“You tried to kill me,” Harry said. “Several times.”

“Yes,” Riddle agreed. “I did. However, you currently don’t want me to kill you.”

“That’s not fair to you though,” she protested. “That I have that much control over you. How am I supposed to trust anything you say or do?”

He shrugged. “For what’s it’s worth,” he said. “Me wanting to kill you would not stop me from being attracted to you. I was never blind. The drama and romance of the prophecy was never lost on me. And, like I said before, I am mostly the soul who stuck with you as you faced the different parts of me.”

“Uh-huh.” Because that made total sense.

Harry was certain she was losing her goddamn mind. But the part of her that had pictured diary Tom Riddle in her bed more times than she was willing to admit wasn’t very mad about how things were going.

“So,” she said, looking past Riddle. “You’re here as long as I want you here, even if it’s not a conscious want.”

He nodded.

“And I can’t die.”

A slow grin stretched across his lips. “Now you’re getting it.”

“Oh Merlin,” she breathed out as everything fell into place. “You’re not even that mad about this.”

“Between this and purgatory?” he asked. “This is the lesser of two evils.”

A part of her felt sick. The other part felt a twisted satisfaction. He was here because she wanted him here. He was hers and hers alone. That broken part of herself that she tried to pretend wasn’t there was crowing in triumph. Here was someone who would never leave her, couldn’t leave her if he wanted to. 

And Tom Riddle couldn’t even be mad about that. Because he, more than anyone else ever could, understood. 

And he felt the same.

“You’re mine and I’m yours, Harry,” he said with a wry grin. “And if I have my way, I’m never leaving.”

Her heart beat almost painfully fast in her chest at his words.

Tom Riddle shuffled over to the edge of the bed and stood. The motion too human to be anything from a dream. He seemed out of place in her bedroom. She had painted the walls white with red and gold accents as an homage to Sirius. 

“I’ll have the elf make us tea,” he said, smoothing down the front of his robes. “And I think I’m going to hunt down some other clothing.”

Harry just nodded blankly.

She could floo Hermione. Hermione would know what to do. 

But Hermione would tell her how to get rid of Riddle. If Harry couldn’t wish for Riddle to disappear - and she wasn’t sure that was something she could want enough. This morning and last night’s memories certainly had her confused and questioning everything, but for the first time since the battle, she felt properly aware of herself and her surroundings.

No, for now, she would play house with Tom Riddle.

Tom. Maybe she should start calling him Tom. 

The sun shone through the windows, bouncing off the light walls. Grimmauld was unrecognizable. It felt like a fresh start.

The continued renovation passed swiftly. Tom fell into step beside her, his keen eye helping fit together the pieces that Harry hadn’t quite figured out what to do with. 

It was almost startling how well they worked together. Harry often caught herself staring as Tom did some task or another. He always caught her, didn’t even have the grace to pretend otherwise. He’d give her a smile, and if he was close enough, a kiss.

The touching was new, something she’d never really had before. Thighs pressed together on the sofa, fingers brushing when they handed something over, waking to the warmth of his body curved against her back in the mornings.

He was hers and hers alone, and that made it all the sweeter.

Ron and Hermione still visited regularly, their voices and laughter filling the kitchen as they made their way through whatever food and drinks Kreacher set out. Tom always vanished on these occasions. 

If Andromeda hadn’t once winked at her when asking about the young gentleman who answered the floo for her one morning, Harry would have thought Tom a figment of her imagination.

A broken glass both shattered and confirmed the illusion.

It was late one night. They were sitting in the back garden that apparently existed, sharing a bottle of wine and a cheese spread between them.

Tom became brighter when he drank, a bit looser. His gestures widened. It always made Harry happy to see it, especially when the looseness started to become more noticeable in their daily interactions.

Even with her, Tom was still concerned with appearances. 

Maybe that was why it had taken so long for her to notice.

This Tom Riddle, whatever he was, did not have magic. 

He’d been telling her a story. A previously forgotten memory of Abraxas Malfoy’s attempts to woo Dorea Black. 

“Between Lucius and Abraxas,” Tom confided, leaning toward her. “I’d pick Abraxas any day. The man was hilarious, but you’d never guess it looking at him. He wanted to ask Dorea Black to Hogsmeade. We all knew she was already going with Potter, but we had conveniently forgotten to tell that to dear Abraxas.”

The realization that a part of him had cared for his original Death Eaters - the Knights of Walpurgis, he had called them at first - was a bizarre one. Tom Riddle had always been an ambitious bastard, but he’d once been a schoolboy like the rest of them.

“So,” he continued. “Abraxas goes up to Dorea after dinner the Thursday before the weekend, and very publicly asks her to go with him. I don’t know if they’d ever exchanged a word before. She was two years below us, you see.”

He’d tilted the glass toward her on that last bit. In the process, he’d accidentally lost hold of the thing, and it fell to the ground and shattered into hundreds of pieces.

Harry had expected him to snap his fingers and flick his wand and have it repair itself or vanish away. 

Instead, Tom had become sheepish, not quite meeting her gaze. “Could you call Kreacher to clean this up?” 

She pulled out her wand - the elder wand, she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t hers anymore - and the glass was back in its original condition. 

Ever since Tom had appeared she hadn’t needed spells. A wish or a want, intent, was all she needed. 

“Tom,” Harry said, keeping her voice low. “You don’t have a wand do you?”

She’d never seen him use it. Hadn’t given it much thought.

He looked up to meet her gaze. “No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”

There was more than that though.

“You don’t have magic.”

Tom grimaced.

It made sense. Some form of divine punishment, maybe. Or maybe only so much of Tom Riddle could be brought back to life, as it were. Maybe when she wished for his presence in his life, she hadn’t given much thought to what spells he could cast, if any.

But Harry never would have imagined a muggle Voldemort for herself. 

Tom Riddle was very, very real.

And as she looked at him, the taste of wine sweet on her tongue, she couldn’t help but think it was a good thing because she wasn’t sure she could love anyone else.

\---

Five of Pentacles: Money Can’t Buy You Love

Two people who remain very much in love despite material troubles. Importance of love and mutual respect in weathering life’s storms. Willingness to face hardships in a mutually supportive way. 

\---

Harry probably should have talked to Ginny first. 

It’d been months, and honestly? She had forgotten about it. She’d been living in her own bubble in Grimmauld with Tom and Kreacher. The bubble stretched sometimes, letting Ron, Hermione, or Andromeda have a glimpse into it. All three were aware she was seeing someone. 

But no one else came through the floo. They’d call, but not come through. They liked to get her out of the house, thought they were doing her some sort of favor. 

Mrs. Weasley continued to mention Charlie’s success in her presence when she went for the weekly dinners that had become a thing, but it was easy to brush off. 

Neville was the one who pushed for it. Wanted to have a get together with everyone - their year, the DA, anyone who was anyone. Even Malfoy was invited. Grimmauld was the only place both large enough and available. Hermione had gotten it into her head to call it a housewarming party.

Ron had elbowed her ribs and joked, “you can bring that bloke you think we don’t know about.”

“Oi!” Harry protested. “Why would I expose him to you lot. You’d probably scare him away.”

Internally, she’d been panicking. It was one thing to live in her own weird version of domestic bliss with Tom Riddle, even when the whole muggle thing confirmed that it was actually happening and not just a twisted daydream. It was something completely different to introduce him to people and properly acknowledge his existence.

“Wait,” Harry paused, turning to look at Tom again. “You want to go to this party? You aren’t just going to hide in the attic like you do whenever Ron and Hermione come?”

“I don’t hide in the attic-”

“Whatever,” she cut in. “You want to talk to people?”

Tom shrugged. “It looks like I’m here to stay.”

“What does that mean?!”

He grabbed for a hand, running his thumb over her knuckles. Harry hated how she melted at the touch. “I’m here because you want me here,” he reminded, not unkind. “If you were to one day wakeup and regret my being here, I’m fairly certain I would no longer be here.”

“Fairly certain,” she repeated, words hollow.

“It’s not like there’s precedent.”

Maybe she was lucky that almost no one knew what Tom Riddle looked like in his youth and that Tom was such a common name. 

But she had forgotten about Ginny.

Ginny who had taken a portkey from Wales after her practice and had arrived an hour or two later than everyone else.

Ginny who searched through the decently-sized crowd to find her.

Ginny who had taken one look at Tom Riddle and started firing. Harry always had admired her reaction time.

Harry couldn’t blame them for their reaction. She’d even abstractly admired how fast they had her stunned and bound. She had been the one to teach them after all.

Dean and Seamus stood at her sides, comforting or holding her in place she didn’t know. But the three of them watched as several stunners hit Tom Riddle.

The thing about stunners was that they were different from petrification. They acted on magic, rather than the body. It was why McGonagall had been sent to St. Mungos after being hit with so many. The problem with muggles is that they didn’t have magic. The closest thing to a magical core a muggle had was the central nervous system. 

Tom Riddle was as good as a muggle. Harry wasn’t sure if he was dead before or because of the last stunner that Ginny sent.

Ron and Hermione were the last ones to leave. Ron lingered by the front entrance when Hermione came up to her and undid the others’ spellwork.

“I don’t know what he did to you,” she said. “But we’ll fix it.” Hermione’s arms came around Harry in a hug. “I’ll go to St. Mungos and see if I can find a mind-healer who’ll be discreet.”

Sometime during the evening, Tom Riddle’s body vanished. 

Harry Potter went to bed that night alone for the first time in months.

She woke up the next morning with a familiar weight around her waist. 

She froze. “Tom?” 

“Harry,” Tom Riddle’s voice said. 

“But,” she began to protest. “I saw them kill you.

The grip around her tightened and Tom pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. “You can’t kill what’s already dead.”

She turned in his grip to see his - beautiful, inhumanly perfect - face, as if she hadn’t watched her friends murder him the night before. She raised a hand to trace a finger along his cheekbone.

“How?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”

“I will be by your side no matter what,” Tom said, voice and eyes soft. “Master.”

\---

“For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part”

**Author's Note:**

> I did a tarot spread for this fic, the cards described are the cards drawn. I used an aquarian tarot deck and used Llewellyn's Complete Book of Tarot: A Comprehensive Guide by Anthony Louis as a reference for consistency.
> 
> Please feel free to reach out to me at my tumblr: @ashilrak


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